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Kids say

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The parents' guide to what's in this app.

Educational Value

Kids can learn to work with technology and to use it to express their creativity. They can develop confidence with technology using the step-by-step process. They can learn to manipulate photos by pinching to crop and zoom, practice creativity, and use their imaginations. Parents may want to talk to kids, too, about how easy it is to alter photos and videos using technology and how to be a savvy media consumer. YAKiT Kids helps kids create by using technology while they're having a silly good time.

Ease of Play

YAKiT Kids' objective is to make it easy for kids to create and be creative. Directions are written, so nonreaders will need help the first few times they use it, but the commands are easy to follow.

What parents need to know

Parents need to know that YAKiT Kids makes kids' safety and creativity a priority. No personal information is requested or collected. There are no in-app purchases or ads. There's not even an option to share their adorable creations via social media or email through the app. Creations can be saved to the camera roll and shared outside of the app, though.

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What's it about?

With YAKIT KIDS, kids can turn photos of themselves, their pets, their friends, even celebrities -- anything -- into talking pictures. They can embellish photos with silly eyes and goofy accessories, props, backgrounds, and other characters. They start by choosing a photo from the camera roll or taking a new photo and zooming and cropping to set it just right. Then kids can get creative, choosing which talking mouth to use, either creating one from the photo (to look more like the mouth in the picture) or adding a cartoon mouth; choosing embellishments for the face (such as silly noses, eyes, and brows); or adding another character (choices include a cartoony President Obama, talking bacon, a red devil, and something that could be a Hershey's kiss or may actually be poop, among other things). They drag mouth guidelines into place to get the right size and placement for the mouth, lips, teeth, and other features and then can test to make sure it all lines up right. Once the photo is positioned and embellished, kids record a voiceover, and the app moves the fake mouth along with the spoken words. It's not perfect but adorably so, which is what makes it so fun. Even the voiceover can be adjusted to sound like a normal voice, a high-pitched voice, or a low-pitched voice, adding to the hilarity. When they're all done and have watched their creations, kids can save them to their camera rolls or start over and create a new talking picture.

Is it any good?

YAKiT Kids is easy to use and really fun. Kids will have a blast creating silly talking photos, and parents can be comfortable with their kids using it, knowing nothing can be accidently shared via social media. Kids may get a bit frustrated if their recordings are cut off. They get only 15 seconds to record their voices, and then the app stops them and replays what they've recorded. To circumvent this, they just need to keep an eye on the green bar at the top of the screen to monitor how much recording time they have left. Also, there's an option to re-record any goofs. YAKiT Kids is a hit for both kids and parents.

Talk to your kids about ...

Families can talk about sharing online. If kids want to share their funny talking pictures, show them how to attach a video to an email. Take the time to discuss safe sharing and encourage them to Pause and Think Online before sharing things that might offend someone or hurt a reputation.

Get silly with your kids! Let them take your picture to modify or make one yourself. You'll all have a blast.

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